The Media on the Media... (It can get tiresome)

The Headline is, Where’s That Film Crew From?

By Robert Struckman, 8-25-08

	A French film crew documented the Denver-bound Oregon Bus Project. Ian Greenfield is a spokesman for the nonprofit political organization.

At one point along the walking mall on 16th Street in downtown Denver early Sunday evening on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, the men and women with media passes seemed to outnumber what looked like locals and regular tourists.

Then a CNN bus—plastered with its campaign coverage logos—roared past on its way to the front of the big convention center.

But the media coverage, at least on a smaller level, started a little earlier for me. I traveled down to the convention with a group of activists from Montana, Oregon and Washington. In Fort Collins, Colorado, we stopped at a rest area to rendezvous with a French documentary film crew.

The cameraman named Pascal boarded. As we rolled on toward Denver, he walked the length of the bus, interviewing half of its passengers. I listened and leaned in to take a photograph and noticed one of the bloggers recording me on his Web camera.

Later, it occurred to me that I had interviewed some of the bloggers.

At least Pascal was asking Ian Greenfield, the spokesman for the Bus Project on whose wheels we rolled, about Trick-or-Vote, one of the project’s programs.

Even later, I thought about how while the convention itself and those events surrounding it are the main story—how this convention reflects the changing mountain west, and this region’s effect on the rest of the country—the media is also an important story, because of the ripple effect of images and sound bites as well as the wild card impact from the odd celebrity bestowed on some media figures. 

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